Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

My Lords, I very much agree with the arguments made by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, and I support her amendment, although I could not really choose between that and the drafting of the Conservatives’ amendment. However, frankly I do not think that it goes far enough. As the noble Baroness made very clear, her Amendment 255A refers only to standards but, as she pointed out, substituting one set text for another may not alter standards, so they would not be affected by her amendment. However, the idea that a Secretary of State could specify Shakespeare and Dickens rather than Austen and Auden fills me with horror. Therefore, I suggest to your Lordships that Clause 138 should not stand part of the Bill, and I do so for three reasons. First, if Ofqual is set up properly it should be unnecessary; secondly, it could be educationally damaging; and thirdly, its presence undermines one of the key objectives of Ofqual, which is to restore public confidence in qualifications. I shall quote, if I may, from a letter from the Minister in another place, Sarah McCarthy-Fry, to the chief executive of Cambridge Assessment. She explained that, under current legislation—Section 26(1)(a) of the Education Act 1997—Ministers had powers to influence the then QCA in several ways and could, if they chose, ""get involved in detailed regulatory decisions about grading, assessment or standards"." She went on to say that this was a bad idea and would change under this Bill, which, as she pointed out, has no equivalent of Section 26(1)(a). She believes that ministerial influence over Ofqual is very carefully circumscribed. However, her justification for Clause 138 was that the Government have a legitimate interest in qualifications because qualifications taken at 16 assess the national curriculum. I contend that the Government use that influence through their powers over the QCDA, which researches and develops the national curriculum. It is then up to Ofqual independently to ensure that the awarding bodies assess and grade children’s achievements properly and fairly. Further down the letter the Minister contended that, ""a Clause 138 determination would normally only be issued where, for some reason, Ofqual refused to adopt draft criteria containing knowledge, skills or understanding that the Secretary of State believed were important"." That is so far-fetched a reason that should such a Secretary of State exist he or she should be drummed out of office, let alone be listened to. In his reply Mr Simon Lebus went to great lengths to explain to the Minister how the examination system works. His rebuttal of her contention is thorough and I will not detain your Lordships with all of it. Suffice it to say that he laid out, using the model of what happened over the development of the new diplomas, the reasons why, in order to exert his influence, the Minister would have had to produce several determinations over a long period during which new information about the diplomas became available. That is because, over a period of about 12 months, the Government kept changing their mind about what diplomas would be all about. So the idea that these would be used only in exceptional circumstances falls by the wayside. Secondly, Mr Lebus contended that the indicative determination describes the design criteria for the diploma, not the subject criteria. The Explanatory Notes, however are clear that Clause 138, ""restricts the Secretary of State to specifying minimum requirements relating, in effect, to the content of a qualification"." The impact of determinations relating to "knowledge, skills and understanding" are not so different from design criteria for assessment, as he implied. An example is, if a minimum requirement is that all must know mental arithmetic, the Secretary of State creating a paper in which calculators cannot be used. The clause does not allow him to reference other qualifications as examples of minimum content. To quote Mr Lebus again: ""Apart from anything else the content of those qualifications changes over time and, indeed, may be changing as a result of Ofqual/QCDA action even as the Secretary of State determines something else"." In other words, we have a changing landscape. As a former science teacher I can assure your Lordships that I would no longer feel confident about teaching today’s young science students, as the knowledge base of science has changed so much since my day, so Mr Lebus makes a very good point. The Minister commented earlier about sitting science A-levels, so I am sure she would agree. This part of the Bill stemmed from a White Paper that pointed out the lack of public confidence, which stemmed from a perception that standards are not being maintained, partly because Ministers were meddling. In another place it became clear that there is overwhelming cross-party support for unequivocal Ofqual autonomy and accountability. These points were made time and again and several votes were taken. In a survey 90 per cent of MPs agreed that a regulator should have a duty to report key decisions to Parliament, that Parliament should play a key role in ensuring that regulators operate independently from government, and that parliamentary scrutiny is critical to ensuring that regulators are accountable and transparent. If the Government accept some of our amendments, all that can be achieved; but if they insist on Clause 138 remaining in the Bill, they will undermine all the good they are otherwise doing.